Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday September 03, 2014 @07:05PM
from the is-it-on? dept.

Esther Schindler writes "You're not alone in your struggle against people who think a shell is something you hold to your ear," writes Carol Pinchefsky. "Other techies are out there supporting users in remote offices, fighting the good fight against computer- and user-related mishaps – or at least tolerating user frustration with a modicum of grace." One example she gives is a tech support person whose systems in Brazil went down — during Carnival: "...We had to wait more than a week for the locals to sober up enough to reconnect the line. In the end, I had to walk a tech (who did not know the system) through the process step by step via an interpreter. Of course, the interpreter was not technical. So it was kind of like explaining to your mom to tell your grandfather (who is hard of hearing) how to do something while she is on the phone and he is across the room from her."

Users in remote offices are the best users! They can email, they can call, and they all get a ticket opened for their issue. But they can't come make a scene in your department (or worse, at your own desk) because "the data pull I asked for last week is clearly out of date, my customer from yesterday isn't listed" etc. I would much rather support users via email, via ticketing, and via phone if necessary, than support them in person.

Indeed. Moreover, email and/or texting helps surmount miscommunication due to heavy accents and bad phone connections. Often I've ended a puzzling scratchy phone call with "can you send me that request through email?" And then I get the email, oh yeah, that's what he meant.

For your company, remote users are the most expensive to support. It often takes several minutes to try to make the user understand what you want them to do, and to do it PROPERLY, where locally, you could just go to a user's desk and fix the problem in seconds.

When dealing with local users, you get to use *ALL* of your senses to diagnose a problem. Does the computer feel abnormally hot? Does it smell like something burning? Can you see that the little tab on the ethernet cable is broken off?

For your company, remote users are the most expensive to support. It often takes several minutes to try to make the user understand what you want them to do, and to do it PROPERLY, where locally, you could just go to a user's desk and fix the problem in seconds.

Therein lies a pretty big problem IMHO, even if it takes you a couple minutes the remote user can now deal with the issue themselves (assuming its something that doesn't require co-ordination with us). Also they now have documentation (in the form of e-mail) in the event they forget. If you just walk over to the user's desk they are not going to bother remembering how to fix it themselves they will remember where your desk is the next time.

Hey, I don't like doing phone support either. Taking a phone call puts you on the spot, with no time to think through your response or prepare an answer. There's no proofreading on a phone call. Which is precisely why some people will always insist on calling, because they know it makes you uncomfortable and assume they can take advantage. It's poor form to say "no," so I learned a long time ago to use the "I'm not sure, but I can find that out for you, I'll shoot you an email" approach. Most folks catch on

Portuguese won't help you when you get clients in Russia and China, and not all companies are big enough to have fluent speakers of all official languages of the G-20 advanced and emerging economies on staff.

It would make far more sense for the Brazilian tech to learn English. Many technical docs are available only in English. It is the language of science and technology, and any journal or conference that wants an international audience is conducted in English. It is the language of international business. If the Brazilian tech has any ambition, he is going to have to learn it.

I once spent three weeks in Sao Paulo. I don't speak Portuguese, and only know a little Spanish, but I didn't have much problem.

Look at a map. Portugal and Spain share a 1,214 km border. Portuguese is more similar to standard Spanish than some Spanish "dialects" within Spain. If you speak Spanish in Brazil, people will usually get the gist of what you are trying to say. You are not going to be able to do standup comedy, but it will suffice for simple phrases like "I want that" or "where is the toilet". Lots of Brazilians are familiar with Spanish because they watch Mexican soap operas.

I was going to post that! Seriously if we now have "Dev-Ops" why not "Dev-Interps". This is the age of flexibility and doing more with less. I always feel embarrased when I work with someone overseas and I do not know their language, not even please or thank you. They took the trouble to learn my language, I should reciprocate.

IT needs to let go of PEBKAC and ID-10-T errors. Your users have difficult jobs and they probably don't want to deal with you any more than you want to deal with them. They probably aren't "bothering" you for fun. If they are, you're doing your job well.

Yes, they can be dense. But guess what -- they are human and so are you! They make mistakes. So do you!I enjoy The IT Crowd and BOFH, but those are fantasies and should remain such.

There are many reasons to show appreciation for the work your coworkers do. The most important is that without them, you may be lucky enough to find yourself in their shoes.

Actually many times its just some sort of conflict. If a reboot causes the issue to go away and it doesn't reoccur then I don't worry about it. If it happens again then it is an issue that needs to be properly diaged.

Hell, I often stay on the phone with my user until I know he/she is back up and running. I then instruct them to shoot me an email if it reoccurs. Id say about three quarters of the time it does not reoccur. I am guessing you have never actually worked a help desk for a windows shop have y

You have obviously never used a computer, nor understand how they work. Billions of complex things happen every second with hundreds of programs interacting and random errors popping up and propagating. The idea that you could solve a random wrong bit in 8 gigs, or even just some weird bug in the source code of windows is beyond absurd.
Rebooting permanently SOLVES at least 80% of all problems.

Maybe you're both correct to some extent. Rebooting certainly doesn't solve all problems. But the software architecture used in Windows/Unix does have the unfortunate characteristic that it sometimes manages to transition into states that no one anticipated and that do undesirable things. Rebooting restores a more desirable state. At least for a while.

There is also a problem that few modern PCs use memory capable of detecting memory errors Thus it's possible for values defining system state to change s

Sometimes it does. For example, Windows Servers will occasionally just lose the fact that they have file locks on certain files. They will function, but can't be accessed via the UI.

Only way to fix it is to reboot the server. Trust me, I thought it was insane at first, coming from a Linux/Unix background. There had to be something... nope. If it's not in the main UI, it won't show in any other locations, however, it'll function just fine to lock that file. Rebooting saves a hell of a lot of time. Even if I

Stop. Users are often absolutely unreasonable. I understand what you are saying but it swings both ways. You ever have a high school drop-out salesman flat out tell you that they dont know why we have I.T. at all? Users often ARE idiots. You know what office workers in the past did? THEY TOOK CLASSES IN OFFICE AUTOMATION so that they understood the tools they work with every day.

Sorry, but no. Simple as that. No. The problem is that people are to use a tool and cannot be assed to learn how to use it. And don't turn around and blame corporate by "but they make me". Then learn to do your goddamn job or GTFO of it, you're wasting valuable oxygen someone else could use productively.

I've spent a good deal of my youth in support jobs. They work well as part time during your university years, and that you're treated like garbage by the cheese-for-brains idiots doesn't really help to endear them to you either. I've seen them all. From the lady who flat out refuses to remember passwords and needs a reset twice a day (one in the morning, one when she returns from lunch) to the gentleman who calls every other day to be walked step by step through the same problem who yells obscenities at you to compensate for his own idiocy that apparently keeps him from writing down those steps.

No. Sorry. My patience with users has expired long, long ago. Learn to use your tools or vacate the position for someone willing and able to do so.

You have NO idea what uphill battle it is to convince certain people in upper management that they do not need admin privileges on their PC. I know, I know, what kinda audacity that I wanna give that tech peon more "power" than his excellency the CfuckmeO and his secretary.

Because he doesn't fuck your machine up for good by downloading every single friggin' shit angry-birds-knockoff game, that's why!

There was one place I contracted at. As a developer, I was allowed administrator privileges. First, though, I had to read and sign a document that said that I understood that tech support was limited, and that if a tech worked on my computer for more than half an hour he or she would wipe and re-image.

What a useless and whinging article! You find remote support frustrating? Some of us recall the days before remote support was an option, having to hop in a car and drive somewhere every time a problem occurred. Remote support is a f*cking godsend. Don't work in support if you can't handle a bit of frustration.

What a useless and whinging article! You find remote support frustrating? Some of us recall the days before remote support was an option, having to hop in a car and drive somewhere every time a problem occurred. Remote support is a f*cking godsend. Don't work in support if you can't handle a bit of frustration.

I remember those days. We had to strip RG58 cable with our teeth and punch down wires with our foreheads while holding a 50 pound roll of Cat 3 in each hand. Kids today, they don't know how good they got it.

Now get off my BBS.

I think the author's point was, in today's world remote support has a few new wrinkles, like distances you couldn't drive in a reasonable amount of time, different cultures, language and technology barriers. Some of us got an early start in this area (I worked for a Japanese-based c

They're still whiners. Try writing code to support multiple languages simultaneously on heterogenous environments with users attempting to look at the same data. Back around Y2K. And then supports those users.

For some reason, kids today think they have all these new exciting special problems and that they're in a eureka moment. That wasn't even true when I encountered those issues more than a decade earlier. I'm pretty sure the initial international connections for what became the internet were not even th

That is true, but when a user tells you that interface eth1 is tied to the modem's internal port and that the outer IP is 'x' and that you can't get past that point, I'd think a lightbulb would go off that perhaps, just maybe, this user might be smarter than the average moron and isn't lying about rebooting everything.

What a useless and whinging article! You find remote support frustrating?

It's more than that. these "support" people find their "users" objectionable - the people for whom they serve and the reason they have a job.

Many if not most people use computers for a varying scale of applications. Most of these people are not "computer professionals". If you are in "support", your job is to "support" these people. If you can't handle that, it's time for a new job.

I dont 'serve' you, we are peers. Support only goes so far. Office professionals should take classes in the tools they use everyday. If you use a computer everyday for work and dont understand it, the fault lies with you. Its not my job to wipe your fucking nose and do your work for you. Learn office automation like people in the past did.

I got news for you, desktop support is a TINY slice of what you think I.T is. And yes we support, not train. And often your desktop is my customer, not you, as laid out in inter-dept SLAs. The reason I.T. treats people at arms length is exactly because of people like you. I am not your trained monkey. you may request, you dont get to demand.

If you are in "support", your job is to "support" these people. If you can't handle that, it's time for a new job.

You sound like a real treat to work with. Issues like yours mysteriously found their way to the absolute bottom of my list, because when you treat people whose assistance you need to do your job like shit, they react accordingly. Tech support is not your personal abuse sponge. And you don't need to be a fucking "computer professional" to remember an 8-character password, or to know that you

Issues like yours mysteriously found their way to the absolute bottom of my list

And then IT wonders why people circumvent their policies. And then semi-tech-savvy people implement workarounds outside of IT and it all goes well until it doesn't.

And when it doesn't, the crap hits the fan quickly because most likely it's some hacked-together system some manager set up years ago that ended up as a production critical system. That no one remembers, or even knows where it's at until some move later or IT comes ar

I counted 5 terminable offenses at most sane companies in this comment. IT policies are not there to impede you or just annoy you; they are there because assholes like you think you know IT's job better than they do. If you are not getting the answers or support you need from IT, or you don't like a decision they make, the answer is not to break policy and work around it. The answer is to escalate the problem up the chain and lay out very clearly and patiently what you are asking for and why it's importa

What I found really smooth was to use create a mix of internal and external contracted support. Troublesome users are passed off to the external support and good users are done internally. The troublesome types want to use some else to prove how bad you are and they are happy until they start to realise how long external support takes and management gets the bill for that detailed external support of them. Everyone else learns to be a lot happier with the quick, direct, personal support and of course in ov

A couple of years ago someone on slashdot posted an interesting system for dealing with obnoxious assholes. If I recall correctly they were doing support as external contractors.What they did was that they always wrote down who it was that needed support and how much time was spent on it, and then they put together a high-score list every month.This had many benefits. First of all their customer got to see that they weren't really expensive, it was just that some people in the office needed a lot of support

I would *much* rather help a user by actually being there than trying to explain how the CD-ROM tray isn't a coffee cup holder. I've worked in IT since the mid-90s and let me tell you, it's less frustrating for all involved that way-- except for the bean counters, who have to pay me to hop in my car and do that. They'd much rather pay a less skilled person less money to try to resolve things over the phone. Except for the smallest problems, THAT is the only reason remote support exists. How many times have

You're lying. Everyone knows private industry is so much more efficient and responsive than the government so you're just making up this shit.

Private industry would NEVER treat their customers in the manner you described. They would bend over backwards, expending all needed time, effort and money to make sure your problem is resolved quickly and efficiently.

For me it's important to keep in mind, I get paid the same regardless, so it's not worth getting twisted up about it. Communicate slowly and clearly, use simple instructions, ask politely for feedback (what do you see on your screen now?) and you'll eventually get there. Unless your remote user is trying to defuse a bomb, how long this takes probably doesn't matter much in the long run. So relax.

Once, at 3AM or so, modem out of commission, no way to log in, I talked an operator through editing a backup script that another admin had broken. (Made a change, didn't test it.) It took a long time, but we got it done and I didn't have to drive in. In his favor, the operator was excellent at following instructions and telling me what exactly he was seeing on the screen.

the operator was excellent at following instructions and telling me what exactly he was seeing on the screen.

As someone fairly green on the helpdesk (just hit the 1 year mark), I must say that I appreciate ten times more a user who follows instructions and describes what's on their screen, than users who claim to be tech savvy, broke what they were working on, and can't seem to fix it themselves.

What I really hate are those users who never learned how to use their computer. They know how to operate one or two programs on the computer, but they always say "I'm not a computer person", and use that as an excuse for never learning the difference between the mouse, the monitor and the tower. The kinds of users who can't take instructions because they're unwilling to focus their eyes in unfamiliar territory on the the screen.

I'm fine with ignorance, ignorance can be fixed, and ignorance is honest. What I can't stand is when people call in asking for help, but refusing to say what they need help with, then when you pry it out of them, they refuse to follow the instructions you give them. Those are the worst users.

So yeah. Compassion is great. I do my level best every day to put myself in the users shoes, because I understand how stressful it is when your tools fail you. But there is certainly a point where the patience runs out, because someone who is asking for help (often demanding help) is not willing to be helped once they have my attention.

My favourite ones are ones that go along the lines of."My email is all gobbledy gook, can you fix it""Ok, forward the email to it@blah.com and I will have a look""How do I forward an email?""Push the button that says forward and has an arrow pointing right. It is on the right hand side of your email about half way up""No it's not""Ok. Can you see a menu up the top marked message""No - where would that be""If you start at the top left corner you will see File, then Edit, View, and finally Message""Oooo the

I remember a job where I had to take acid suppressors (the kind you take for acid reflux) during the workday just to get through the day. I'm really glad I don't work there anymore. Some places are just poison. The only solution is to be somewhere else.

But in that case, the user community had built up a remarkable hostility towards IT (somewhat deserved) over a number of years. Not something you could easily solve in a few months.

I'm fine with ignorance, ignorance can be fixed, and ignorance is honest. What I can't stand is when people call in asking for help, but refusing to say what they need help with, then when you pry it out of them, they refuse to follow the instructions you give them. Those are the worst users.

Unless they are extremely mean people, they actualy do not know what to ask or what feedback to give you.They realy have no idea what they are looking at. What is obvious for you makes absolutely no sense to them. They

For me it's important to keep in mind, I get paid the same regardless, so it's not worth getting twisted up about it. Communicate slowly and clearly, use simple instructions, ask politely for feedback (what do you see on your screen now?) and you'll eventually get there. Unless your remote user is trying to defuse a bomb, how long this takes probably doesn't matter much in the long run. So relax.

Once, at 3AM or so, modem out of commission, no way to log in, I talked an operator through editing a backup script that another admin had broken. (Made a change, didn't test it.) It took a long time, but we got it done and I didn't have to drive in. In his favor, the operator was excellent at following instructions and telling me what exactly he was seeing on the screen.

In some ways I got lucky. One of my first jobs was supporting point-of-sale systems and pump controllers at 100 gas stations, about 30% were 24-hour. There is nothing like walking a minimum wage cashier through resetting a pump controller and being woken up at 3:00am in the morning as trucks are lining up and they can't pump gas... If you have the patience to do that, you can support just about anything...

It taught me how to be patient, professional, to ask all kinds of questions, and to pay attention to any and all details that are provided. It also taught me how to put myself in the place of the person on the other end of the phone and how to calm them down.

> The other thing I learned is that rebooting machines is for whimps who don't want to know what is really wrong... we couldn't reboot certain machines, it'd take 20 minutes to get the store back up if we did... so we'd troubleshoot the actual software configuration and restart processes that were hung instead of taking the entire system down for one failed service... Of course that is an ideology that doesn't permeate the world of support.... and quality support is rare because most people in support se

So do mine, but I'm prepared for providing them service during holidays by having SLAs across my vendors that ensure they will be supported during those holidays.

I also test on random occasions my vendors ability to support these times by intentionally 'breaking' something or at least simulating a break.

What I don't do is act surprised that Joe's no name 'data center in my closet at home' isn't around to support my servers in his closet because its that time of year when he goes and does something else...

No, your problems are not "people who think a shell is something you hold to your ear"; your bigger problems are people who *think* they know something, specially when in positions of power, or the miraculous consultants management brings him, that where captured by the consulting firm as rookies (because you know, rookies dont have vices and are better to "reprogram") that think they are the best thing since sliced bread, but only know how to use expensive suits, spew pretty reports and shrink wrap what bobs that hates you tells them during the "discover/gathering facts" phase.

When conducting remote support, the cell phone is an invaluable tool. For one, you can talk to someone directly as you walk them through the wiring closet / rack if needed. Most importantly, is the ability for them to take photos and send them via SMS. Video capture can be important if you suspect activity lights are wonky (failing switch, rare but happens). But most important, you are providing them to tools to help you dive remotely and be self-sufficient. Remember the phrase "help me, help you".

but consider yourself lucky someone wants or needs your help. This industry and capitalism's desire for endless efficiency and profit means a fair few of us reading your post are sitting at home without a job at all.

I'd gladly sit on the phone through a translator to fix something, infact I'd be inclined to think you're probably at a medium sized business or smaller if you're dealing with something like that, so it's probably within your power to do some pretty interesting and dare I say "cowboy-ish" stuff

If you read his post, I got the impression the link was down, remote access wasn't a viable option. If that means an administrator needs to talk someone through unplugging / re-plugging something or confirming a diagnostics LED, so be it, they're employed regardless.

This article really brings to light the fact that some people seem to require perfection to the extent that they cannot see life as it is, but only how it's supposed to be. There is no way to ease their frustration.

If you work in support, you're going to eventually end up in a situation where there is a server that needs to be addressed, but there is no phone in that room, and so you end up with this same sort of scenario (talking through someone). You should probably just express your frustrations wit

Personally, I'm surprised if someone in IT even knows what a shell is. As an end user I'm frustrated by being told to turn it off and back on again, or being transferred through three departments until they find the one and only IT employee who actually understands computers.

Remote offices are great. It means not everyone has to crowd into the main headquarters, it also means that the IT people don't have to all crowd together too. What's good for all workers is good for IT workers, so it's a good thing

My first experience of remote tech support was in 1986, when one of our systems in Bahrain needed support. The only communications available were phone or Telex. With timezone differences, we used Telex. I had to anticipate what might happen, describe what to look for, detail what to type, etc. without knowing if they'd get it right until the return Telex the next day. One of the trickier bits was describing what keys to press, as Telex had a far more limited character set than the computer keyboard. I woul

One example she gives is a tech support person whose systems in Brazil went down — during Carnival: "...We had to wait more than a week for the locals to sober up enough to reconnect the line. In the end, I had to walk a tech (who did not know the system) through the process step by step via an interpreter. Of course, the interpreter was not technical. So it was kind of like explaining to your mom to tell your grandfather (who is hard of hearing) how to do something while she is on the phone and he is across the room from her."

Ok, that's just... I don't even know what it is... ethnocentric? It's stupid... not everyone in Brazil gets wasted during carnival. Businesses still run, things still work. If you had a line go down for a week without repair, that wasn't your remote users fault. That was your businesses fault for having a shit contract. Where we work we have tens of thousands of data and voice connections in every remote area you can imagine and there's no way something could go out for a week without a very good excuse like the building burnt down, or there was a flood. Even then we'd find a way around the problem temporarily. It's been more than one time I've kept a company in business with Cat5 strung through some trees.

And the language thing? Give me an Fing break. I had to support a doctor in India that did not speak english, so I made a wild guess, hit the directory of the hospital and looked for an American sounding name. Sure enough it was an American and he was nice, helped translate. I sent him detailed instructions and he helped walk the other doctor through it. That's our Job If I'm a window washer, I'm not going to complain when I come across a dirty one.

filling filling for the filter filling fillingCat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment... like the body or the subject!)Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment... like the body or the subject!)

Calmly try your best for 40 hours/week or whatever you agreed to. Explain limitations and possible solutions, like user training and shifting parts of infrastructure to where you are in a better position to maintain it. Then set the limits, but don't be rude. You don't pay the company's bills, your users do.

... for not having contacted a local tech contractor with some english speaking skills that could help. Someone that comes in a couple hours now and then to solve any issues.Remote tech support is all fine and dandy, but sometimes you do need (technically literate) hands and eyes on the ground. I've taken care of servers on a different continent - 99% of the time I just ssh-ed in. The 1% I've had someone local - and technical! - drive in with a laptop and help.

Correct and as a brazilian working in the IT field I can attest that those times of the year (carnaval, christmas, mothers day) the techies are usually doing overtime to assure your shit does not break down. Carnaval is like any other holiday either you are on call receiving overtime or you are not and the next day after the holiday is over is back to business as usual.

Then at least she could avoid blaming a carnival, and concentrate more on her linguistic skills. Or hiring Portuguese speaking engineers instead of non technical interpreters to run a computer system in Brazil.

Many people around the world speak English at different levels. Sometimes it is just Globish or an Airport English. But Brazil is an enormous country where people do speak Portuguese. No way around it.

Then at least she could avoid blaming a carnival, and concentrate more on her linguistic skills. Or hiring Portuguese speaking engineers instead of non technical interpreters to run a computer system in Brazil.

Many people around the world speak English at different levels. Sometimes it is just Globish or an Airport English. But Brazil is an enormous country where people do speak Portuguese. No way around it.

Or maybe the people in Brazil were out partying instead of working. Were you there somehow and you have information that lets you assume that the author is actually incorrect in their statement?

Anyway. I support networks in many countries around the world including Brazil and it is just not realistic to learn another language to be able to support them.

Perhaps if it were my primary or only customer base, maybe. But you have no idea that this is the case with the author.

... it is just not realistic to learn another language to be able to support them...

It is quite common in Europe to speak two or three languages fluently. If there are 2 - 3 engineers who speak 2 - 3 languages fluently then most of the major languages are covered.

By the way, it is often just a stereotype that all people are drunk here or there. Brazil economy grew 2.5% in 2013, it is certainly achieved by hard working people.

I live in Europe and I speak two languages fluently but I still believe it's completely impractical to learn all the languages when supporting a global deployment of systems or network devices. If you had to interface with users, then I would agree - but that isn't the case here.

Anyway, if you read the article the problems they encountered had nothing to do with language:"Unfortunately, this was during Carnival. The local phone company did not answer, and the local employees did not answer their mobile pho

Not being able to communicate with people you are hired to support is most certainly your problem. If she had no viable method to do the job, why did she accept it? That makes her pretty stupid from the start.

If you want to talk about practical, it started long before someone mentioned learning the language.

Do you think its okay for someone to claim they are a Java developer without knowing a single bit of Java?

Not being able to communicate with people you are hired to support is most certainly your problem. If she had no viable method to do the job, why did she accept it? That makes her pretty stupid from the start.

If you want to talk about practical, it started long before someone mentioned learning the language.

Do you think its okay for someone to claim they are a Java developer without knowing a single bit of Java?

What in the world are you talking about? Did you even bother to read the article?

Let me help you:"Unfortunately, this was during Carnival. The local phone company did not answer, and the local employees did not answer their mobile phones. After two days we got someone from the phone company on the line — and they were too drunk to understand us."